Nick Palacios struggled to get his conservative Pentecostal parents to accept him as a gay evangelical Christian for nearly a decade before his family found a common ground through faith.

Now, as an openly gay seminarian, the 29-year-old hopes to carve out a similar acceptance for other gays in the broader evangelical community through his role as president of the nation's first LGBT student club sanctioned by a major evangelical seminary. The group, called OneTable, formed last fall at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, one of the world's largest multi-denominational seminaries, and has attracted about three dozen students.

"It quickly became apparent to me that I was going to be OK and that I wasn't going to have to forsake my faith for my sexuality," Palacios said of his struggle for acceptance.

"I really hope that people will see Fuller and OneTable as a model of what the body of the church is supposed to do in this situation."

Fuller's stance has created ripples in the larger world of Christian colleges and seminaries, where a growing number of gay evangelical students are asserting their dual identities with underground clubs and nascent political activism. Last year, for example, a group called the Biola Queer Underground was quashed by Biola University, a small, conservative Christian school in nearby Orange County.

Fuller was started by a legendary fundamentalist radio preacher of the 1930’s and 40’s Charles Fuller who bought radio time on hundreds of local stations when the big networks refused to sell him time and only put liberal mainline religion on.

Fuller was an influence on many including a young kid named
Jerry Falwell whose mother was a loyal listener.

4
posted on 07/13/2013 11:02:56 AM PDT
by Nextrush
(A BALANCED BUDGET NOW AND PRESIDENT SARAH PALIN ARE AT THE TOP OF MY LIST)

*21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
*22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
*23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Maybe you better heed the Word of God before you go making arbitrary decisions about your life. It just may have eternal consequenses.

6
posted on 07/13/2013 11:03:19 AM PDT
by MichaelCorleone
(Jesus Christ is not a religion. He's the Truth.)

Just how does one go about being a homosexual evangelical Christian?
How does one square their choice to spit on the Bible and God’s Word while claiming to be a person of the Bible and God’s Word?
Yes we are all sinners’s but we can chose to renounce our particular sin and except Jesus Christ as our savior. But a homosexual evangelical Christian is choosing to live their sin daily and want God to be accepting of that. Did not know it could work that way...

12
posted on 07/13/2013 11:25:08 AM PDT
by SECURE AMERICA
(Where can I go to sign up for the American Revolution 2013 and the Crusades 2013?)

The Bible is not some pragmatists paradigm. It is the double-edged sword that chiseled truth into my stony heart, rendering it new and with it, recreating me as a new creature in Christ, a daughter of the King. I have no personal sexual orientation to call my own after Christ chisels my heart anew  and neither do you.

21
posted on 07/13/2013 2:38:31 PM PDT
by Lee N. Field
("You keep using that verse, but I do not think it means what you think it means." --I. Montoya)

"I have a hard time believing that gay evangelical Christian all go together in the English language."

From the Fuller website:This doctrinal commitment is built on a submission to the authority of Scripture, which must stand as teacher and judge of all that we think and do. It both inspires and corrects our doctrine and our conduct. It must always be clear that for us as evangelicals, the Scriptures outrank all of our doctrinal statements, even statements as carefully written and as strongly believed as those in the Statement of Faith.

and from the Fuller website a bit further down:At times, some Christians have become unduly attached to the precise wordings of doctrine-whether of events in the last days, the meaning of baptism, or the use of a catch phrase like "the inerrancy of Scripture."

Obviously Fuller has decided that interpreting Scripture in a way that condemns queers is just a case of people being, ". . . unduly attached to the precise wordings of doctrine . . .". This is no different than when all non-Catholics did a complete reversal of what they taught regarding contraception. Fuller is just another example of reinterpreting Scripture in a way that makes it easier to go along to get along with popular desires.

If Fuller is doing a U-turn, a lot of others will do the same before much longer. As is the case whenever it's time to accommodate popular demand, there will be a tad of reinterpretation here, a coating of SuperslickChristian Liberty Grease there, and before you know it the overwhelming majority of "Evangelicals" will ignore queers the same way they now ignore millions of infants murdered with abortifacient contraceptives. They'll even be making impassioned arguments for why the Catholic Church is wrong to still not agree with them and embrace queers right along with contraception.

The majority of Self Alone folks who claim to rely on nothing but Scripture (well, the subset of Scripture they accept), start with what they want Scripture to say and then interpret Scripture in a way that agrees with the conclusion they want. It's sad, but it's true and until that changes non-Catholic churches will keep on moving ever closer to MTV than to Christ.

By the mid-Seventies most non-Catholics had given Satan an inch and he became their ruler. Tens of millions of Catholics saw them prospering in spite of their going along to get along and left the Catholic Church to join the Protestant majority whether they physically left the Church or not.

Now the children (the ones who survived) of all those folks believe following Eve is the same as following Christ. That really shouldn't surprise anyone since their parents did the same thing. The only difference is that their parents still had a few "hangups" the children didn't inherit.

22
posted on 07/13/2013 4:16:26 PM PDT
by Rashputin
(Jesus Christ doesn't evacuate His troops, He leads them to victory.)

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